


slow dancing in the spider's web

by quiet_lights



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Detective Michelle Jones, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Peter's been working with Beck for 8 years, Post-Blip AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, investigative work, no one came back
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 16:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet_lights/pseuds/quiet_lights
Summary: “Then you understand it too. You understand what happens when you lose everyone you love in the span of a single moment.Your soul dies. And you’re left waiting the rest of your days for the remainder of your body to catch up."dark post-blip AU:eight years after she survived the Blip, Detective Michelle Jones finds herself in the midst of a deep conspiracy; there’s a mysterious shadow vigilante in the night; the murder of a beloved hero might not be as it seems; and a dark organization is intent on piling up more bodies the further she investigates.





	slow dancing in the spider's web

**Author's Note:**

> The story setting takes place in a darker, post-blip universe, where those who disappeared from the blip never came back. 
> 
> Everything is mostly similar to canon up to Infinity War. Except in this story, the Avengers sacrificed themselves at the Battle of Wakanda, ultimately defeating Thanos, but failing to prevent him from snapping half the universe out of existence. 
> 
> The story mostly follows Michelle’s POV, and we’ll learn about what’s happening to the rest of the world through her experiences. All I can say, and as a warning, is that the world around her is no longer a safe place. With half the population gone, what’s left is going to be quite dark, depressing, and on the verge of breaking and decay. All of which are going to be huge themes throughout the story, and of course, including finding hope in the darkest of places :) 
> 
> No beta used so let me know if there are any mistakes.

**Winter, 2026. **

The siren wailed to a stop in the lonely, winter’s night.

It was shortly after 4:30 a.m. in the morning when Michelle Jones pulled over by the empty parking lot next to the old Daily Bugle building. Her shift was already long over by the time the 10-56a (suicide attempt) came over the police dispatch. But being only a few blocks away, she responded nonetheless.

She got there in less than five. There was barely any traffic along the way. The streets of Manhattan weren’t as they used to be. Not since the _Blip_ anyways. Still, Michelle prayed she wasn’t too late.

She parked next to an old, abandoned moving truck long stripped of its parts, the metal chassis left behind like the preserved husk of an ancient mammoth, surviving even the erosion of time itself. Stepping out of the car, Michelle tightened her jacket against the cold and crossed the vacant streets, entering into the old Daily Bugle building.

There wasn’t a single visible soul inside.

The building was pitch-black, and from the state of it—both interior and exterior, Michelle assumed that there hadn’t been a nightshift watchman in years. Not that there was anything of value left to steal in the old, derelict building.

She unclipped her flashlight and turned it on. The light reached into the dusty blackness, revealing broken furniture, cracked glass, and dozens of vulgar-graffiti spray-painted onto the walls around her.

She tried on a nearby light-switch. _Click-click_. Nothing. She was hoping for a lucky break, but it was to be expected. After all, it’d been years since the building was last occupied.

She didn’t bother checking the elevators. No power meant that the elevators wouldn’t be working either. Instead, she looked for the emergency stairwells, finding them and kicking the doors in and sprinting upwards.

Around thirty-five flights of stairs later, she ended up at where used to be the main offices of the once infamous tabloid news—the Daily Bugle. As with the rest of what she’d seen in the building, there was nothing left here but dust and garbage deemed too worthless to scavenge.

She took a long second to catch her breath, then navigated through the dark office space, heading for the open terrace at the back and stepping out into the night’s chill.

The cold immediately bit into her face; a hundred times worse this high up, and a thousand times more jarring.

From the open terrace, Michelle could see the dozens of Manhattan skyscrapers rising up beside her, jutting into the ominous winter fog like behemoths rising from the dark. It was truly an amazing, but eerie sight to behold.

There wasn’t a functioning light source on the Daily Bugle itself, but the ambient lighting from the nearby buildings pushed back enough darkness to reveal the lone woman sitting by the balcony’s edge, legs dangling over the side.

“Ma’am!” Michelle had to shout over the heavy winds. “Please step away from the-”

The woman turned around—and she was a lot older than Michelle had expected. Mid-sixties, perhaps even in her seventies. “Who are you?” she asked, sounding a lot calmer than someone in her situation should’ve been, and definitely a lot calmer than Michelle likely was.

“Detective Jones, NYPD,” Michelle flashed her badge as she inched closer. “Please, you don’t have to do this. Whatever it is that brought you up here, we can talk about it.”

The woman stood up and swung one leg over the side of the railing. “Please stay back, one more step and I’ll…” it sounded more like a threat than a suggestion. If she were to let go, it was going to be a long fall down to the bottom.

“Alright, alright,” Michelle backed up immediately, but kept at a minimal distance where they could hear each other over the howling winds.

Michelle’s mouth felt utterly dry at that moment, and she knew it wasn’t just from the exerting climb. She tried to think of all the suicide-prevention classes she’d taken back at the academy, the dozens of scripts and scenarios her instructors had them memorized for de-escalation. But her mind was pulling a blank. Nothing was coming to her now.

A long moment passed.

The two of them just stared at each other, like strangers in nothing more than a chance encounter, until the woman asked, “Aren’t you a little young to be a detective?”

“Y-Yeah,” Michelle nodded, momentarily surprised at how casual the question was; it wasn’t condescending in tone, but full of curiosity. That was good. She knew she had to keep the conversation going. Every minute they talked was a minute someone wasn’t falling to their deaths. “I had a couple years’ head start since I signed up for the Academy right after high-school,” she continued. “Plus, the department was shorthanded so I was kinda fast-tracked through the program. Not like there were a ton of people vying for law enforcement jobs after the _Blip_ anyways.”

“That’s admirable of you,” the woman said. “You remind me of my daughter. She wanted to be law-enforcement too when she was younger. Though she eventually settled on a different career path.”

“Can I call your daughter for you, ma’am?” Michelle asked, some of her training finally coming back to mind. _Family connection_._ A familiar voice. _

“Susan, my name’s Susan.”

“Let me get your daughter on the phone with you, Susan. I’m sure she’s worried sick, you-”

“My daughter’s not with us anymore, Detective. The _Blip_ took her eight years ago.”

Michelle’s heart sank. “I… I’m sorry. Is there anyone else I can call, friends, family-?”

“I’ve got no one else,” the words came listless and flat. “The _Blip _took everyone from me. My husband, my children… even my grandchildren too. The only person who survived the _Blip_—my son-in-law, was in the passenger’s seat when my daughter blipped out during rush hour traffic. He’s the only one I got to bury.”

There was nothing Michelle could say. Words caught at her throat, but nothing felt adequate.

“Did you lose anyone, Detective?” Susan asked.

Michelle nodded. “My mother.”

Susan smiled, but it was a broken, joyless smile, like there was nothing behind the act but the muscle memory of an emotion long forgotten. “Then you understand it too. You understand what happens when you lose everyone you love in the span of a single moment.”

She locked eyes with Michelle, and there was no mistaking the fierce resolve within. “Your soul dies too. And you’re left waiting the rest of your days for the remainder of your body to catch up.”

“Wait!” Michelle immediately started to sprint in the other woman’s direction. 

“I’m sorry, please don’t blame yourself. I can’t wait anymore.”

Then she was gone.

And as Michelle’s hands swiped across air, finding nothing, her screams were quickly drowned out by the howling winds.

-

It took close to an hour for the ambulance to arrive; with the recent bouts of manpower scarcity, dwindling resources, and increased crime rates all over the city, priorities weren’t as they used to be—the dying could still be saved, the dead were already dead.

Michelle waited with the body, as blood and bodily fluids continued to seep out from underneath the tarp and into the snow around them. When the smell hit her, it took everything she could to not spill the contents of her stomach onto the side of the streets. 

One of the EMTs offered her something for her hands; they must’ve noticed how badly her hands were shaking.

She declined, so the EMT offered her a sympathetic hug instead, which she accepted.

Then they were gone, off to the next body.

Michelle sat there for a long time. Staring into the dark, until she could feel the cold in her bones, reminding her that she was still very much alive.

-

The sun was a brief flicker through the ugly, morning clouds when Michelle finally made it home.

She lived alone in a modest two-room apartment in a high-rise building in the neighborhood district of Washington Heights, Manhattan. It was a cosy little place, warmly furnished, quaint, and quiet on most evenings.

A few years ago, she probably wouldn’t have been able to make the rent on such a place on her measly police salary. But like traffic, the rent in NYC wasn’t as it used to be post-_Blip_.

A few Stark Industries Combat Drones (or SCDs) flew by overhead as she drew back the curtains to allow in sunlight.

She watched, uninterestingly, as the SCDs passed.

It was indeed strange at first—a few years ago when they were initially deployed—to see hundreds of drones patrolling the city skyline at any given time. But New York, like the rest of the world, had long gotten used to them by now.

Michelle on the other hand, still felt differently.

Having spent most of her high school days theorizing about the robot uprising (and witnessing Ultron), she was still somewhat ambivalent about having an advanced A.I. system control surveillance and security capabilities at such a massive, worldwide scale.

But with the dwindling police force, slashed law enforcement operating budget, and the disbandment of the Avengers after their sacrifice at the Battle of Wakanda, the SCDs were still a welcoming—albeit somewhat uneasy (for her anyways)—sight on most days.

Plus, they were made by Tony Stark, the Avenger who gave his life to defeat the Mad Titan Thanos. It was his last gift to humanity, a “_better-than-my-first-try_ suit of armor around the world”, as he’d called it.

And who was she, conspiracy theories (and terminator movies) aside, to claim otherwise?

After a quick shower and a couple of eggs and toast for breakfast, Michelle climbed into bed, pulled the blankets over herself and fell asleep seconds after hitting the pillow.

-

**2018**

A few seconds ago, Michelle was sketching the very obvious—and very visible—balding patch on Mr. Harrington’s head.

In the next, as she looked up from her pièce de résistance—he was gone, leaving behind a floating swirl of what seemed to be dust, reminding her—at that moment, of raked autumn leaves kicked into the wind.

She blinked hard. Then she blinked again. And again. But the dust was still there. It continued to swirl for a moment before settling into a fine crumble, losing to gravity, then disappearing into the ground as if they were never there in the first place.

Her chair screeched as she shot up to her feet.

“Did you see-” she turned to Detention Inmate #1 (she never bothered learning their names, inmates come and go), only to realize that he was gone too.

So were inmates #2, #3, and #4.

She was completely alone.

It didn’t seem to be a isolated incident either. Sounds of panic quickly erupted from all around her in the school compound.

Her heart pounded in her chest, but she fought to remain calm, she needed to see what was happening.

She ran out of the classroom, pushed through the terrified crowd that seemed to be dispersing in every direction and not at all, and exited through the front entrance of Midtown High.

New York was in no better shape. Trails of smoke rose from all over the city, as horns and sirens shrieked through the streets. It was complete, utter pandemonium. People around her were running and screaming, some were praying on their knees, others stumbling around in a daze, from injuries or at complete disbelief of current events.

Michelle stood rooted to the ground, staring wide-eyed at the chaos, when the shrill of her phone’s ringtone brought her out of her stupor. She pulled it out and stared at the screen.

“**EMERGENCY BROADCAST ALERT:** ALIEN THREAT INBOUND. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”

“Kids! Get back inside!” one of the teachers shouted behind her. “Don’t panic, the Avengers will come save us!”

Michelle started to run back in the direction of the school when an immense shadow, larger than anything she’d seen, loomed overhead, blocking out the sun. Then came a deafening boom. The world shook under her feet and an explosion flung her into the air. She flew across the sidewalk and cracked her head against the pavement. There was a flash of pain, and a wave of blistering heat washed over her as darkness swept her away.

-

**2026**

_Bzzt… Bzzt… Bzzt…_

The persistent buzz of her phone’s alarm woke Michelle from her dream. The memory was so real it took her a second to reorient herself. Her fingers slid to the side of her temple, a subconscious action, trailing along the lingering scars from cracking her head open against the pavement all those years ago.

In a way, she supposed she was lucky that things happened the way it did. When she woke up in the hospital two weeks after the incident, heavily bandaged, left eye still swollen shut, and with dozens of stitches running down the side of her head, she learned that United Airlines Flight 616—both pilots vanishing as a result of the_ Blip _(though it still wasn’t called the blip back then), had crashed into—and decimated half of Central Queens.

The impact of the crash and the force of the explosion levelled multiple city blocks. The shockwaves had flung her behind an overturned school bus, which partially shielded her from the waves of fire and heat. It took medical services at least half an hour to get to her, and she was in bad shape having lost a lot of blood and suffering from second-degree burns, which could’ve been a lot worse if she hadn’t landed where she did.

She survived, and in the time since, she healed. And in the eight years that followed, all that remained from the day of the _Blip_ was a lingering headache where her skull struck cement, and recurring nightmares equivalent to a constant, hellish playback of that fateful afternoon.

She got up shakily to her feet and turned off the alarm. A quick glance at the clock told her that she’d slept for two hours, and had about half more before the start of her next shift.

She yawned, stretched, then went into the kitchen to put on the strongest pot of coffee she could find.

-

A few hours later, Michelle was seated at her cubicle in the 24th Precinct, nursing a terrible headache and in the midst of her fifth cup of coffee, still struggling with filling in the incident report of the 10-56 (suicide (upgraded from a 10-56a)) from the previous night, when she was called into the office’s conference room with a dozen other officers.

Then came an hour-long lecture on firearm safety and regulations, because apparently some trigger-happy idiot discharged his firearm in a crowded mall trying to stop a shoplifter (tasers would’ve done the job just fine) and accidentally hitting a civilian instead. The public backlash was the worst-case scenario for the upstairs brass, who were still dealing with the fallout of the botched drug raid two weeks ago that ended up with five dead civilians and two dead cops. Thus, the lecture.

As Sergeant Lopez continued to drone on about regulations and liabilities and accountabilities and pretty much everything else in the rule book under the sun, all which Michelle had already memorized by heart and practiced with the utmost discipline, she found herself staring at the clock ticking above the conference room’s whiteboard.

One of the clock’s hands was stuck twitching in place, constantly moving between the numbers “4” and “5”, and Michelle couldn’t help but wonder if Lopez’s lecture was so unnecessarily dragged out and tedious that his monotonous voice had somehow found a way to disrupt the space-time continuum in this room, affecting the clock, because it sure as hell felt like it’d been way more than an hour by then, and he didn’t even seem halfway done.

Another hour later, and with her head now full-on throbbing and her eyes barely able to remain open, Lopez finally closed his folder and said, “That’d be all.” The entire room sighed in relief, and Michelle wasted no time leaving the room with the rest of the officers around her.

The first thing she did was to refill her thermos with another hit of piping hot coffee. Then, deciding she needed a break (and some fresh air), got a bunch of snacks from the office’s vending machine and headed up to the roof.

She found a quiet spot overlooking the city. Leaning against the railings, she closed her eyes for a long moment, feeling the wind rustling through her clothing and the warm glow of the evening sun greeting her through parted clouds. The tension behind her eyes slowly seeped away, as did the throbbing around her skull.

She exhaled, feeling a lot better now.

She snacked away, enjoying her haul of junk food when a notification pinged her phone. It was an online article from the New York Public Access Daily. She clicked the ‘_read’_ button and headlines popped out in large bold letters.

“**WORLD LEADERS GATHER TODAY TO PAY TRIBUTE TO FALLEN HERO: **

_A year after his death, the world still mourns Quentin Beck…_

_…_

_…_

_Formally known as the Interdimensional Hero—Mysterio, Quentin Beck was found murdered at the hands of the Spiderman, who Beck identified in his final video statement as Peter Parker, 25, of New York, Queens. _

_…_

_…_

_Still at large, no one knows why Parker, long tenured member of the now-disbanded Avengers and protégé of both Tony Stark and Quentin Beck, turned on Beck the way he did. _

_…_

_…_

_…_

_But the world has little to fear from the Spider Menace. _

_… before his death, Beck was successful in integrating his suit’s A.I. system—technology from his own technologically-superior world—into the Stark Industries mainframe database, allowing him to reconfigure and control the thousands of dormant Stark Industries Combat Drones around the world, turning them from silent observers into an active shield that protects mankind from evil. _

_…_

_…_

_Using advanced facial recog systems and weaponry, the drones are programmed to stop crime with maximum efficiency and…_

_…_

_…-with Parker’s DNA already in the system. Analysts predict a 97.3% chance he’ll be caught within the year. _

_…_

_…” _

Michelle scanned through parts of the article, eventually coming upon a dated (last sighting 2025) photo of Peter Parker.

She could remember it like yesterday when news of Quentin Beck’s death came over the airwaves. She hadn’t known Beck personally, but she, like everyone else, knew of what he’d done for the world post-_Blip_.

With the Avenger’s disbandment after their sacrifice at the Battle of Wakanda, it was Mysterio and Spiderman who continued providing hope for a battered, broken Earth. It was also Beck Industries, with its unlimited funding and technological marvels, that helped heal the world, creating a better tomorrow for the people of Earth.

On that day, it felt as though someone had dropped a rock on all their hearts. More specifically, Peter Parker did. He was Mysterio’s protégé and a hero of the post-_Blip_ world. Everyone loved him, until he turned on the man who gave the world hope. And now, the entire world was after his head.

She studied Peter’s photo again.

He looked a lot older than he did in her memories. Tougher, less soft around the edges. Definitely taller. He looked nothing like the awkward, ‘professional wallflower’ that she knew back then. But then again, none of them—the ones who’d survived anyways—were the same after the _Blip_.

The worst part of it all was that she remembered mourning for _him_ too.

Spiderman was there to save the world after the _Blip_, but Peter Parker never came back, and so everyone (it was mostly just her, Ned, and Betty) mourned for him too. In retrospect, she kind of understood why he did it. With half the world blipped out of existence, there simply wasn’t any time left for him to be Peter Parker. He had to be Spiderman, and being Spiderman was a consuming job. He did it well too, at least before he…

Still, when she heard the news that he was alive, that he was _the Spiderman_, there was a part of her that resented him for not telling her. For letting her think that he was dead for all those years. But she also knew that he didn’t owe her any of it. They were schoolmates, nothing more. Her anger was selfish, but she figured there was nothing wrong with being selfish, and her hatred was easily justified by what he’d done to Quentin Beck.

At least that was what she’d always told herself.

Her phone rang.

She closed the article and looked at the caller ID—_Lieutenant Miller_—before picking up immediately, “Sir, you’ve got something for me?”

“Yeah,” a gruff, no-nonsense voice came over the line. “Triple homicide, family dead, girl missing, bunch of dead Los Blancos. A shitshow in all.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll text you the address.”

-

The sun had retreated behind dreary, storm-threatening clouds when Michelle neared her destination. She rolled up the car windows as the cold returned with a renewed vengeance, like shadows freed from the imprisonment of sunlight, consuming all in their paths.

The drive to Forest Hill, Queens, was haunting, to say the least.

Forest Hills, Queens, used to be a bustling residential neighborhood, full of cheap (but delicious) restaurants, chain stores, and (though she never quite cared for it then) once being the home of the U.S. tennis open—full of sports history.

It was also where she’d grown up, where she’d attended high school at the Midtown School of Science and Technology, and where—on the day of the _Blip_ eight years ago, United Airlines Flight 616 crashed and destroyed half of Central Queens.

A powerful sense of familiarity stirred within her during the drive, memories and emotions layered over one another. The streets around her felt familiar, reminding her of the path she’d taken thousands of times before when she was younger, and yet nothing was alike, the current landscape like two images superimposed on top of each other: the view from the drive and the memories in her head.

As she drove by, she remembered the pizza place she used to frequent on the corner of Harrow Street; the row of weirdly-named hipster coffee shops across the road from the sports stadium; and the family owned Italian bodega on 72nd avenue she would walk by every night on the way home from school. The place was full of beautiful memories. Memories she dearly cherished.

But that was all they were. Memories. None of them were still here.

In reality, the government had decided—eight years ago, that it was safer, more efficient, and of course—cheaper, for them to simply relocate the residents and businesses of Forest Hills, Queens. After all, with half of the world gone from the _Blip_ and with no signs of return, there wasn’t a shortage of real-estate around New York at all.

A few years later, the city had mostly moved on, and Forest Hills, Queens, still in its devastated state, was quickly forgotten by the masses. Decay took over, and it was now nothing more than a shell of its former state.

But not everyone moved on. There were still people who lived there; the homeless, the less fortunate, and the ones who preferred a place exactly like Forest Hills, where people were watchful of strangers and kept to themselves, a place where police response was almost non-existent, and a place where hopelessness was the norm, and despair lurked around every corner.

The streets were similar, but almost nothing else was.

-

Midtown Heights was an old, dilapidated apartment building that’d seen better days.

There were already a few other police cruisers on scene upon Michelle’s arrival, their lightbars painting the surrounding buildings in a dizzying pulse of blue-red flashes, while a patrol drone hovered overhead, turbofans a deafening roar. Yellow police tape heavily cordoned off the area, looping around a broken lamppost and around the back of the apartment block.

Holding her cap tightly to prevent it from being blown away by the drone, Michelle approached the cordoned zone and flashed her credentials at the patrol officer, who lifted the tape and allowed her access.

“Third floor, ma’am,” he said as he tapped on his shoulder-radio. There was something hollow in his eyes, as if haunted by something he’d seen tonight. “I’ll let them know you’re coming up.”

She nodded and entered the building.

Curious eyes peeked out from keyholes as she passed through the ground floor, but none seemed interested in introducing themselves. She headed upstairs, floorboards creaking with each step, as dying overhead lights seemed to flicker in rhythm with the leaky, unseen pipes all around her.

From the state of things, Midtown Heights was clearly a place that hadn’t recovered from the _Blip_.

She got off on the third floor and the smell immediately assaulted her sinuses, turning her saliva coppery. The stench of blood, rot, and the chemical solutions of crime scene technicians. She wasn’t sure which was worse; they all smelled equally like death.

She lifted the additional police tape outside of the apartment room and entered.

There were at least half a dozen crime scene technicians going around in the apartment. Some were collecting forensic evidence, some were taking crime scene photos, and others crowded around multiple datapads, entering data into the computerized systems for better analysis. Not a single one of them paid her any attention, as if she was nothing more than a passing soul, invisible, or simply not worth their attention.

She followed the odor into the living room, a nervous anticipation growing inside her; it wasn’t everyday they were called to respond to a crime scene all the way at Forest Hills. She wondered if she was assigned here because it was where she grew up, or if it were nothing more than a simple coincidence.

Her questions though, disappeared the second she came across the bodies. Three of them, laid out at the center of the room. The bodies were covered from head to toe with a white tarp, but she could tell from their make and build that it was two adults and a child. One female, two males. A father, a mother, and a boy.

Lieutenant Kim’s words echoed in her head. “_Missing girl_.”

Urgency flooded through her. If the crime scene was any indication of the type of person that took the girl—then things weren’t looking good at all. “Shit,” she muttered.

“It’s a motherfucking shitshow, alright,” said someone behind her.

“Jimmy,” Michelle greeted the burly middle-aged police sergeant with an equally middle-aged gut. “It’s been awhile.”

“Jones,” Jimmy tipped his cap. “Indeed, it has. Miller put you on this?”

She nodded.

“Damn,” he whistled. “In the big leagues now, huh?”

Michelle grinned. Jimmy was her assigned partner back when she was still fresh out of the academy and in patrol. They’d worked together for close to two years before he was reassigned to another precinct due to manpower instability. He was a good mentor and a great friend, taking her under his wing and teaching her everything she knew on how to survive the streets as a police officer post-_Blip_.

He was also the one who’d encouraged her to apply for the detective program, which ultimately led her to where she was today.

“What happened here?” she asked after their initial greeting.

“Breaking and entering gone wrong,” said Jimmy. “All three were shot point-blank in the head, execution style.”

“Suspects?”

“Over here,” he motioned to the next room. “And prepare yourself.”

They stepped into the kitchen, and Michelle was left speechless for a second.

The place looked like a warzone. Shattered furniture and bullet holes as far her eyes could see. There were three dead men strewn across the room. Two were riddled with bullet holes, their bodies barely recognizable, and the third was mangled in such a state there was barely anything left of him but blood and bone matter.

The strong metallic tint of gunpowder still hung in the air. The men weren’t ripped apart by brute, physical strength, but velocity and high caliber weaponry. 

“Don’t bother shedding any tears for these guys,” Jimmy shrugged. “They’re the perpetrators. Forensics matched their fingerprints to the murder in the other room. Their prints and DNA are all over the place.” He pointed to the tattoos running down one of the men’s arm. “All three are… well, were, from Los Blancos.”

She knew of Los Blancos. They were one of the more ruthless drug gangs still operating in New York. “So… they killed the family in the other room, but what happened to them? Who did this?”

“The SCDs,” Jimmy said. “From the look of things, it seemed like one of the drones spotted the B&E during patrol, came in and the rest is history.”

“Non-lethal wasn’t an option?” everyone knew the SCDs carried enough non-lethal weaponry to make the anti-riot squad green with jealously.

“It was. Until the idiots shot back. Can’t say it’s the smartest thing they did all night.”

“And the missing girl?”

“That’s the problem. We’re still not sure if she was even in the house when they entered,” he said. “No signs of another body. We suspect she might be outside when the whole thing occurred. We’re still trying to track her down, but no luck on that so far.” He looked down at his datapad. “Name’s Ava Jennings, fifteen, studies at Midtown community down the block.”

“Damnit. What about the drone footage?’

“Miller’s still trying to get it,” Jimmy exhaled, clearly annoyed. “Our jobs would be a whole lot easier if they’d fucking cooperate with us more. Fucking agendas everywhere I swear.”

Michelle didn’t disagree. While the SCDs operated alongside the police force, they were technically still a part of the Avengers Initiative; which meant that they operated outside of the NYPD’s jurisdiction, and there was a lot of bureaucracy and red tape to navigate through before receiving additional support from those managing the drones at Beck Industries.

One of the crime scene techs called for them from the fire escape. He pointed at a shard of glass wet with blood. “There’s a fourth Los Blancos member,” he said. “Blood doesn’t match any of the other three. Doesn’t match the girl either.”

They followed the fire escape down to the first floor.

It didn’t take them long to locate a pair of muddied footprints leading away from the building and towards the side of the road where it stopped abruptly. The crime scene technician scanned the footprints with his datapad. “Two different set of footprints,” he said. “One size 11, likely male, the other size 5, likely a teenage male or female.”

Jimmy cursed. “One of them took her then. Why?”

Michelle was quiet for a second. Then it became clear to her. “The drones.”

“What?”

“The perp was using the civilian as a shield. It was a B&E gone wrong. The four of them broke into the house and killed the residents. The SCDs responded. One of the perps fired at them, which engaged lethal mode, killing three of the four instantly. The last guy grabbed the girl, knowing that the drones would not fire with a civilian between them. They backed out of the window, down the fire escape to where his car was parked…” she paused, finding a hole in her theory. “But why didn’t the drones pursue? Why did they let the perp escape? They could’ve followed with aerial recog and set a perimeter.”

“Makes sense…” Jimmy nodded. Then he looked down at his phone. “Miller got the footage. They’re sending it in. We can confirm your theory.”

-

She was right. Down to the exact detail. They could see the fourth perp, face full of terror and bleeding from his side, dragging along a screaming girl less than half his size. The drone had followed them out the fire escape, its lethal options on hold due to the girl’s close proximity.

Then the most peculiar thing happened.

As the drone followed the perp out onto the street, static flooded the high-resolution footage, blurring everything in view until there was nothing left on the screen but static pattern, like an old television that’d lost its signal.

“What the fuck,” Jimmy said what they were all thinking. “What the fuck was that?!”

“Technical failure?” one of the crime techs offered. “That would explain why the SCD stopped pursuing. Maybe one of the perps’ bullets hit a critical component.”

“Fuck!” Jimmy kicked at a trashcan, voicing everyone’s frustrations. “We didn’t even get the fucking plates!?” 

-

They caught a lucky break. Dispatch notified them of a 10-61 (a call to police) a few hours later, originating from a landline six blocks away from the crime scene. An older woman rambled over the call, something about seeing a person covered in blood exiting his car and dragging along the young female passenger into a nearby industrial building.

The call matched their descriptions: both the suspect and the hostage. The woman hung up before they could press her for additional details, fortunately, Beck Industries’ virtual mapping network, made possible by the thousands of active SCDs constantly scanning the city for threat overhead, and installed into every law enforcement datapad, allowed them to see exactly where the call originated from.

From there, it wasn’t too difficult finding the building which the caller identified. Most of the buildings in this area were abandoned industrial warehouses, mostly similar in design, but only one of them had fresh blood trails all over the front entrance.

Since the two of them were still canvasing the neighborhood, they were the first ones there.

With Michelle riding shotgun in Jimmy’s police cruiser, they screeched to a halt outside of the building compound. They called for backup on the way, but being this deep inside Forest Hills and with the nearest precinct close to an hour away, it was going to take some time before additional help would arrive.

Jimmy popped the cruiser’s trunk and the two of them armed themselves with kevlar and heavy-duty police-issued weaponry. Then they waited, taking cover behind the cruiser’s bulletproof frame.

“This isn’t good,” Michelle muttered, scanning the warehouse for signs of life and not seeing any. She was getting impatient. Not from the lack of action, but textbook statistics: the earlier the response, the higher the probability of a rescue. The longer they waited, the riskier it was.

Jimmy looked down at his phone. “I requested drone backup, dispatch said it’ll take them at least five to seven minutes.”

Michelle nodded, “It’s going to be a long five to seven minu-”

A loud piercing scream came from inside the warehouse.

It was the scream of a young, terrified girl.

Michelle shot up to her feet. As did Jimmy. Their eyes caught and after a long second, he nodded.

“Fucking hell,” he hissed as the two of them started running in the direction of the building, effectively breaking protocol by not waiting for backup. “Where are the fucking drones when you need them!?”

-

They snuck into the warehouse grounds, keeping their bodies low, moving along shadows as they approached the abandoned building. The place was huge, and from what Michelle could gather, used to store large, industrial cranes. The warehouse itself was a large looming shadow, at least five storeys tall, completely shrouded in darkness.

Michelle didn’t like it one bit. It was too quiet, there were too many places to hide, and too many shadows. It wasn’t a place one should enter without prior reconnaissance. But they didn’t have a choice. They kept their torchlights off as to not attract unwanted attention. The moonlight was enough.

The prior scream came from somewhere above, so they found the stairwells and proceeded cautiously upwards. Four flight of stairs later, they found themselves at the entrance of a long corridor, and from the hushed, strained tones of arguing voices, it became quickly apparent that the lone gang member wasn’t as alone as they initially thought.

Michelle could make out at least three of them arguing in the moonlit corridor. Three men covered in Los Blancos body tattoos, with automatic weapons strapped to their pants or in their arms. They were arguing loudly now, movement and voices agitated. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but she heard glimpses of their conversation.

“… _why the fuck did you come here?!”_

_“… are you fucking stupid? You brought a hostage here?” _

_“… you’ll lead the fucking dogs right to…” _

One of the Los Blancos members grunted as the other elbowed him in the face, followed by a string of vulgarities in their native tongue. “_Do not say his fucking name!” _

Michelle inched forward, straining to hear more of their conversation.

While it was obvious that the girl was here, and that she wasn’t connected to whatever business the Los Blancos was conducting in this abandoned building, it seemed that it wasn’t just a random building the kidnapper decided to hide in.

“Jones,” Jimmy hissed softly. “Wait.” He grabbed onto her shoulder. “We need to back up, there are way too many of them here. I hear more in the next room. We need to wait for backup, we’re outnumbere-”

The sound of a cracking plastic bottle underfoot eviscerated the remainder of Jimmy’s sentence.

Michelle froze, instinctively looking down at what she stepped on, right as Jimmy pulled her down to the ground, seconds before something whipped by and _thunked_ into the wall behind her.

There was complete silence for a long second—then the corridor lit up as a maelstrom of bullets thundered in their direction.

-

They stumbled through the darkness as a dozen voices rang out behind them. Gunfire erupted and steel pipes rattled across the darkness, getting closer every second. They ran into a storeroom and barricaded the entrance with an overturned cabinet, and took cover behind a fallen desk.

“Fuck!” Michelle hissed as she ejected a spent mag and reloaded her weapon. “How the hell are there so many of them?! Did we stumble into their goddamn hideout?!”

When no response came from Jimmy, she turned to look at him, only to realize that his upper torso was covered in blood.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” she scrambled to his side. “Fuck, where did they get you?”

“I’m fine,” Jimmy wheezed, his face grunting in pain. He patted his kevlar, “Vest protected me for the most part. Fuckers got me in my arm though. Fuck, in my good arm too.”

Jimmy, being the reigning champion of the annual bowling tournament at his precinct, was likely referring to his bowling arm, something which Michelle couldn’t quite fathom as her first thought if she were to get shot. Which at the moment, was starting to become a very likely scenario.

“Hold still,” she used her tactical knife to rip a chunk of cloth from Jimmy’s sleeve and pressed it against the wound. “Keep the pressure there.”

She barely had enough time to drag him to a corner, away from the line of fire as people outside started to pound at the door. She made sure he was secured before moving to the other side of the room, slipping into the shadows, weapon pointed directly at the room’s entrance.

The pounding grew louder and finally—the makeshift barricade gave way. The overturned cabinet rolled onto its side as the door was forcefully shoved inwards. The first gang member jumped into the room, eyes darting across dark shadows. Then, his head whipped backwards as a bullet entered his left cheek, sending him sprawling into the ground. The second gang member, blocked by the third behind him, took a few shots in his arm, but managed to duck out behind the doorframe before returning fire.

Wood splintered all around Michelle as automatic weapon fire shredded her hiding place. She leapt forward out of the shadows, her weapon returning fire, bringing down another two gang members before something smashed into her upper shoulder, spinning her around, then the side of her leg, sending her down on one knee.

It took her a second to recognize that she got shot. The pain registered as adrenaline faded, right before two more rounds thudded into her chest. The impact sent her falling backwards, crashing into the ground and gasping for air. She was bleeding profusely from both her upper shoulder and her leg, but from the lack of blood around her chest area where the two other bullets had struck, she knew the kevlar must’ve done its job.

She struggled to get back up on her feet, only to slip on her own blood and crash back down onto the ground.

Someone started to laugh, and Michelle looked up to see the barrel of a shotgun pointed right down at her.

The Los Blancos member smiled, revealing rows of rotten teeth. “Now, now what do we have ‘ere?” He leaned close, so close she could smell the rot in his breath. “What say we ‘ave a little fun before I blow yer head off?”

She breathed in heavily, then gave him a wink. Not an easy thing to do considering she could barely breathe. Then, with all her remaining strength, drew her tactical knife and jammed it into the spot right between the man’s legs.

A guttural squeal erupted from the gang member’s throat. He leapt backwards as blood pooled from his groin area, reddening his pants like he’d wetted himself in a most macabre way.

“You… You bitch!!” he screamed, saliva flying in all direction. ‘You fucking bitch!” His shotgun pressed right into Michelle’s face, and she could feel the heat from where it’d fired before. “I’ll fucking kill yo-”

The window beside them shattered inwards, showering all of them with shards of glass as a dark shadow landed in the center of the room.

The Los Blancos member standing before Michelle, being closest to the shadow, turned towards the dark form. He swung his shotgun in that direction, right as an arm shot out from the dark mass, grabbing onto the barrel and twisting it back towards the man himself.

The gang member found himself staring down at the barrel of his own weapon, barely a second’s time to register his own demise before the weapon fired. There was a loud crack as his head got blown off, splattering the walls of the room in brain matter.

The room fell quiet for a second. Then, everything happened at once.

Someone shouted, and every single gang member in the room opened fire.

Michelle immediately rolled up into a ball, making herself a smaller target as gunfire decimated the room around her.

The roar of gunfire seemed to echo forever, a painful ringing in her ears. Then it was over. More than half of the Los Blancos were on the ground, some dead, others groaning in pain, either by friendly-fire or the shadow’s hand. Only two were left standing.

One started to reload his weapon. The other picked up a fallen member’s gun and started to spray blindly in the direction of where the shadow was last seen. He screamed as bullets tore into the darkness, finding nothing. He only managed to go through half of the weapon’s clip when the shadow dropped behind him, almost like it’d extended from one end of the room all the way up to the ceiling and down the other.

The man turned, right as the shadow swept his leg out from under him. His world spun as gravity took hold, but before he could crash onto the ground, the shadow smashed into him at center-mass, sending him flying across the room and colliding into the other remaining gang member.

The two of them fell into a heap, groaning. Neither got up.

Then the shadow turned to Michelle.

At that point, she had lost so much blood she could no longer think straight. Though, in a moment of clarity, she wondered if she’d already died in the previous firefight, and if this was nothing more than a hallucination as she slipped away into the unknown.

Still, instinctively, she tried reaching for a weapon in the shadow’s approach, for anything she could use to defend herself. But there was nothing within grasp, and all she managed was to scratch at the ground and stare at the approaching form.

The being stopped before her, and as he stood in the moonlight, she realized that the dark form wasn’t a being of shadow, but a man in a suit of complete blackness.

He kneeled down in front of her. She tried to push him away, to shield herself from whatever come next. But she was too weak, her eyes were starting to grow too heavy. Her vision started to blur, and as the darkness took her away, the last thing she saw was of the shadow wrapping something around her leg. A jab of pain, something tightening, squeezing.

Then nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably my longest chapter 1 yet. Let me know what you think? :]


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